British-made; uses the common (maybe too common) Mauser action; has an effective range of 800m for .308 variants and 1100+ meters for magnum varians. Despite what ignorant people think, the AW Police does NOT fire .338 Laupa; it actually fires a 7.62x51mm round (.308). It has a magazine capacity of 5+1 rounds. It is used by the Swedes, the German Bundeswehr, and of course, the Brits.

In popular culture, the AWP is known as the "ghey" or "n00b" weapon of Counter-Strike. I indeed agree, as it's overpowered. However, it requires more skill to use the Steyr Scout, as it is less powerful (it usually only kills with a headshot) -- but more experienced players use it for sniping, because it has a faster fire-rate and they can show off that they don't need an AWP to snipe. In my opinion, the Scout is the best sniper rifle in the game, followed by the AWP, then by the dreadedly lame G3-SG1.

Arctic Warfare Police sniper rifle, manufactured by Accuracy International, a British gunworks company. Uses 7.62x51mm (.308 Winchester) ammunition with 10 round magazine. Also uses notoriously known bolt action mechanism.
In the Counter-Strike (now six years old, but still most played and famous FPS multiplayer game, originaly a mod for the Half-Life game by Valve software), it uses .338 Lapua Magnum caliber, corresponding with AWM, Arctic Warfare Magnum sniper rifle. However, it also has 10 round clip, which isn't realistic because AWM uses only 5 round mags. So the hybrid weapon in CS combines better properties of these two weapons, both higher clip capacity and larger caliber (i mean better in game, because heavier caliber doesn't have to be advantage in real firefight).
In CS, the AWP is often considered an overpowered weapon, because it has ability that no other weapon has - it kills with just one shot almost anywhere in the target's body, excepting only legs and arms. If a limb is hit, the player has 15-19 HP (hit points) left. It is also the only weapon that kills with a headshot hit through an obstacle if the target has a helmet.
Buying/using of AWP is forbidden on many public servers by AMX weapon restrictions plugin.
In clan-wars, the sniper with AWP is very important element. 99% of professional clans have at least one sniper in the squad. A skilled sniper can totally change way the match is moving, as example, very good CT sniper can cover a bombsite so effectively, that the terrorist team either can't even reach the site or they can do that but with a large descrease of their count.
In my opinion, the AWP isn't overpowered, it's just easier to use for low-skilled players than the other weapons, beacuse such people are not able to score a headshot, so the AWP offers them to "override" their lack of skills. However, if they encounter an agile player (every at least mid-skilled one) they usualy can't hit him anyawy.
AWP is also very expensive, in clan-wars 4750$ can be incredibly large amount of money.

Stands for Arctic Warfare Police, a police and counter terror version of the L96A1 Arctic Warfare Magnum. Made famous in Counter Strike as the rifle that makes you gay by people who complain about snipers.